An Introduction to our Worldview from the Psalms
By Jay Wegter
To deny that there is a transcendent moral order is to deny that the Almighty Holy God of the universe is Creator and Ruler.
That denial is evidence that a person has been taken captive by the world’s philosophies (Col 2:8). Holy Scripture affirms that the transcendent moral order (God’s law) is just as real as the non-transcendent physical order we see in our universe (see Psalms 93-97). It is impossible that we should have a Holy Almighty Creator and NOT be living in a moral universe (Job 34:10-15; Dan 4:34-35; 5:21-23; Rom 2:5-9; 12, 16; 13:1; Eph 1:21; Rev 2:26-27). By ‘moral universe’ we mean that moral law is built into the very fabric of creation. God’s laws are not arbitrary nor the result of social conditioning—in fact God’s laws are just as much in force on earth as anywhere else in the universe. If we traveled to a planet in some other galaxy, God’s laws forbidding murder and adultery would be just as universal because the Lawgiver is omnipresent, and His laws are written on the consciences of those made in His image. God’s moral authority will be put on display to the rational universe on judgment day (Rev 20:11-15; 21:8).
Unbelieving men deny that this is a moral universe due to their antipathy toward the holy character of God and because they despise their accountable to Him.
They resent the fact that they owe God moral perfection—they bear a grudge against God’s moral majesty (Rom 8:5-8). Man’s transgressions cause him to live with his back to God—in defiance of his Maker’s rightful claims upon him (Jn 3:19-21). The reality that this is a moral universe is sometimes called natural law—meaning that God’s laws are the very furniture of the universe—and therefore are self-evident. By self-evident we mean it is inescapably obvious that ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ is ethically superior to hate your neighbor and lie in wait for his blood. Virtue and nobility are the polar opposite of living by animal passions. We know instinctively that theft, murder, rape, adultery, and slander are wrong and worthy of condemnation. The Word of God tells us why we know instinctively that those actions are wrong—we know they are wrong because our Creator’s moral mark is upon us—written upon our consciences (Rom 2:14-16).
Why is a 14-year-old runaway teen enslaved in prostitution in New York City a heart-rending tragedy? The answer is: because of self-evident morality. We know instinctively that she was created for something infinitely better than to sell her young body to lusting older men. When one opens the Holy Scriptures, a work of correspondence takes place—correspondence between what is written by God on man’s conscience and what is written by God in His Word. What is written on the heart and conscience of man, namely God’s transcendent moral order is written on the pages of Holy Scripture. The reality that this is a moral universe is inescapable. This is the reason why sin and judgment is such a pervasive theme in literature from antiquity to the present. We are regularly confronted by the plot of crime and punishment—virtue and evil. Crime and punishment bear an undeniable relationship to one another which we refer to as justice—and the reason why is because this is a moral universe, and its Ruler is just (Is 30:18; Rev 20:11-15; Matt 7:21-23; Mark 7:20-23; 9:42-48). Because this is a moral universe, sinful man’s greatest need is the grace of God.
Because this is a moral universe, ideas have consequences. God made the universe out of nothing. Truth has no independent existence of its own. Truth is therefore an ethical issue because all truth is God’s truth—and is therefore backed up by His authority. Truth is from God, truth is not a property of a chemical on the elemental table. Christ is divine truth incarnate (Jn 14:6). The concept of truth includes morality. The term ‘moral value’ is actually a misnomer. The reason why is that morality is not a matter of personal preference (i.e. what a person chooses to value or devalue). Morality is anchored in divine immutable truth. Thus, the more accurate term in place of moral value is moral truth. Moral truth is a superior term because God has spoken authoritatively concerning what is true, real, right, and wrong.
Moral truth does not change because God does not change. Thus, what is true about God, man, man’s moral boundaries, and man’s place in the universe issues from the immutability of God Almighty. Morality finds its objective source in the answers to the following questions: Who is God? What is man? What is man’s purpose? Is this an open or closed universe? Consider how the reality of ‘moral truth’ overturns the prevailing idea today that morality is subjective or relative to the individual, and that if a person thinks something is right or wrong; then it is right or wrong for them.
By the term ‘closed universe’ we mean that those who hold to this view believe the universe made itself and that the universe is self-sustaining and self-interpreting.
An analogy is helpful at this point: to believe in a closed universe means that all existence is in a ‘box’ we call the universe. And those who hold to a closed universe explain what’s in the box by what’s in the box (including the explanation of man). This view is known as naturalism or materialism. By contrast, the open universe view proclaims the non-negotiable truths of biblical theism—that our transcendent Creator has spoken to us infallibly in His Word and in His Son (Heb 1:1-3) and He acts upon the created universe from outside of it—He is not a part of it. It is dependent upon Him, not the other way around.
God’s self-revelation, the Bible, is God’s authoritative word from outside the ‘box’—from outside time/space/mass. God is not a part of the time/space/mass continuum we call the universe. In the Scriptures God is telling things we could not have known apart from His revelation. The Bible defines reality as God Himself and His relationship to what He has created (Rom 11:36). God has direct control of what He has made. He owns it, upholds it, directs it, sustains it. He entered history in the Person of Jesus Christ. But when Christ returns in glory, it will not be as suffering servant next time. He will return as Conqueror to subdue every enemy of God (1 Cor 15:23-28; 2 Thess 2:6-9; Heb 9:27-28).
Only the Word of God can answer with absolute objectivity and authority what we call ultimate questions. Science cannot answer even one ultimate question any more than the bug in a jar can explain the boy holding the jar.
An extremely important ultimate question is: What is sin? How big of a disaster is sin? What are the consequences of sin? What has God done about sin? God declares through Christ (the sinless one) that man is not fit to diagnose his own case because man is a lover of darkness (Jn 3:19-21). But why does Jesus make this statement? It is because sin kills moral objectivity. For man to accurately diagnose sin he would have to step outside of his sin entirely and view it from the omnipotent vantage point of a Holy God. That would be like a scientist saying: “In order to study the element oxygen accurately we will abstain from using it personally for the entire duration of the experiment.” Part of man’s dilemma is that even though his conscience is his true center, he cannot transcend his moral condition. His ethical existential situation is that he is a member of a horribly fallen human race. The goldfish in his bowl does not know he is wet. Wetness is all he has ever known. Sin is all we have ever known—we do not know experientially what perfect holiness is—therefore we do not know God apart from Christ.
If man has no Maker, no Divine Designer, and no goal, then where does the ‘ought’ and ‘should’ come from in morality?
In MacIntyre's book After Virtue, the author notes that Aristotelianism sees the moral virtues as connected to the social role of the individual as part of a broader community, a community which collectively strives towards the highest good for man. Man is seen as a creature with a telos, a purpose, and striving to fulfill this purpose is the very definition of being a “good man.” This further means that one can derive an “ought” from an “is” through a rational analysis of man’s telos. Thus, man is not an ostensibly free individual disconnected from his social roles and functions. There is no real identity for man apart from such roles and functions.ⁱ
God alone knows the true nature of sin in all its ugliness.
The Word of God is a comprehensive treatment of the subject of sin—it is our Creator’s testimony of man’s moral condition, and it is God’s testimony concerning His Son (1 Jn 5:9-10). Jesus made this perfectly clear. No one can be objective about his sin and the human moral condition until he acknowledges that sin kills moral objectivity (Jn 8:31-38); and that God’s testimony concerning human sin is true. And apart from the gracious convicting role of the Holy Spirit, man will not take God’s side against sin.
Repentance is intellectual as well as addressing outward ethical behavior. To repent is to abandon our cherished erroneous ideas about man and God and sin—and then to abandon the false notion of autonomy and autonomous reason. The repenting man brings his mind under the mind of God as revealed in the Word of God. This is essential if a man is to be ruled by God and thus move from a fugitive under God’s moral government to a willing subject under God’s moral government. God and His Word are one. Just as you cannot know another human well apart from his words—we know God solely by His Word. God’s Word is where his moral truth is authoritatively revealed. God’s moral truth is backed up by divine authority (1 Jn 1:5).
In our supposedly progressive world, moral relativism and moral confusion reign—and are moving us to the brink of destruction because we have lost our moral minds through the deceits of secular humanism.
Manmade philosophy has justified living by animal passions—morality has been reduced to personal preference. The created purpose of man has been intentionally lost (Rom 1:18-23). The reality of the human soul has been ‘amputated’ from our anthropology by false philosophy in the name of freedom and progress. This is a death wish, a death spiral, a staircase to hell. Ideas have eternal consequences because this is a moral universe ruled by God. Man, by his false philosophy, is smashing himself against God’s immovable laws. How much of a disaster is sin? Only on judgment day will the gravity of the disaster sink in fully. Then on that day, history will prove to be the record of the honoring and dishonoring of God and the eternal consequences of each. Error will someday be forever hung on the gallows and displayed in all its wretchedness. God tells us that history will prove to be a mighty object lesson to the rational universe (Rom 9:22-24).
How much of a disaster is sin? It is a disaster of such proportions that to remain impenitent is to openly deny the purpose for the creation of humanity—that purpose being to love, obey, know, serve, and enjoy our God forever. The very purpose of our existence as those made in the image of God is to exalt the beauty of God’s moral majesty. The universe exists for this reason. Of course, the realization of man’s created purpose is out of reach apart from the grace of God. To love the God of holiness is impossible for mankind apart from forgiveness through Christ Jesus (Jn 17:3).
What men are by nature due to sin expresses itself in hostility toward God and His law (Rom 8:5-8).
By man’s stubborn commitment to retain enmity toward God, he winds up opposing himself and his own highest good (Rom 2:4-11). Sin is spiritual suicide. When men choose to remain in unbelief; it is an act of self-destruction, there is no greater folly. God’s gracious offer, the command to receive eternal life—to be right with Him by Christ is the greatest of all conceivable gifts (Jn 3:16, 36; Rom 8:32; Is 55:1-6).
No man knows God until that man has been forgiven of his sins. And no man can be forgiven of his sins until he says the same thing about his sin as God does. And this is what God says about your sin: it is rebellion, lawlessness, pollution, alienating, ruinous, and deserving of hell. And no man will say this about his sin until he has been ‘cross-examined’ by God’s law (Rom 3:9-23). Only then can he be ‘cross liberated’ from his sin and his sinful perspective (Rom 3:24-26).
God’s law is the opposite of arbitrary. For God’s law is His eternal holy character in code, the source of our ethics in this moral universe.
Thus, to rail against universal moral absolutes is to attempt to mock God—it is to defy God’s immutable holy character (Gal 6:6; Rom 6:23). Man was created to be the image of God—the reflection of God in the creature (Gen 1:26-27). Conscience tells me that this is so. It tells me that God will examine my life someday. For the conscience generates ‘subpoenas’ on a regular basis. The conscience is a little annex of God’s ultimate courtroom (Rom 2:12-16). The conscience of man is a place of verdicts. The reality of a busy defiled conscience which constantly evaluates all our ethical decisions is very real for one great reason: man was created to be the moral image of God—that is to reflect God’s moral beauty and perfections in our relationships. The infinite gift of saving and forgiving grace received in Christ makes a man’s conscience a place of joy, peace, and communion with God.
Even atheists agree that if every single person lived by The Ten Commandments, we would have heaven on earth. But man’s pride and self-love will not allow him to admit the depth of his fallen-ness. How far did Adam fall? He fell much further than we can possibly imagine. But no man will accept God’s remedy for this disaster until he accepts God’s diagnosis of the man’s horrific dilemma by reason of sin. Most of humanity is traveling upon the broad road which leads to destruction (Matt 7:13-14). If a person is on the broad road to destruction, he will regard God’s diagnosis of his moral condition to be a conflict of interest. In other words, he will reject God’s plain testimony concerning the human condition. He chooses to live his life in denial of his true moral state in God’s sight (Ps 14:1).
Why do unbelievers do this? Why do they reject God’s testimony concerning their moral state in His sight? Why do they assert that absolute moral truth is unknowable and therefore non-existent? They remain in this state of denial because of their deadness by sin. They cling to the rebellious illusion that they are autonomous and that there is a reality greater than God Himself. Therefore, they have zero sentiment to live for God’s honor and glory. Only the power of God in the gospel can reverse this. Only the gospel has the divine power to restore the glory of God to us and allow us to recover our love and passion for God’s glory. The gospel has the power to drive out the ancient lie which has darkened every man’s heart (Col 1:19-21). When a sinner sees the glory of God in the face of Christ, only then does that sinner understand the beauty and desirability of God’s glory (2 Cor 4:4-6). For God’s glory is joined to the wonder that Christ has borne the reproach of all who would believe.
How spiritually dead is mankind? John Piper answers this question brilliantly, “One of the unsettling things about the new birth, which Jesus says we must all experience to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3), is that we don’t control it. We don’t decide to make it happen any more than a baby decides to make his birth happen. Or even more accurately: We don’t decide to make it happen any more than dead men decide to give themselves life. The reason we need to be born again is that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. That’s why we need the new birth, and that’s why we can’t make it happen. This is one reason why we speak of the sovereign grace of God. Or better; this is one reason why we love the sovereign grace of God.”ⁱⁱ
Our culture has mainstreamed the lie in Eden, calling it ‘science’.
Science, or what passes as science, claims to be able to explain nearly all phenomena, and as such, desperately wants the role of inspiring awe and wonder and trust. Can you imagine a more fitting ‘Golden Calf’ to describe our age? The natural man, with his delusional worldview of autonomy takes his hunger to behold glory to created things instead of to his Creator. Scripture warns that whatever we worship instead of God, we will serve and be subjugated by, and in some sense be conformed to it.
Popular culture shoves Christianity’s truth claims into a subjective, private, upper story category that is considered divorced from reality.
We are continually slammed with this dualism—namely that our religion is merely a private, esoteric preference, and not a faithful explanation of the real world. For the unbeliever, mankind is regarded as autonomous, self-determined, and existing in a material world or impersonal universe. This worldview of philosophic naturalism is assumed by our culture. No wonder true believers need a regular ‘tune up’, or realignment to the truth of God’s relationship to the cosmos.
The Holy Scriptures reveal why God made the cosmos, and how the creation functions as a ‘stage’ or ‘theater’ for God’s glory revealed in the flow of redemptive history.
We need to frequently revisit the Big Picture expressed so beautifully in the Psalms. For, this present world system, with its cultural mandate of the self-determined individual, regards our Christianity as an upper story, private preference that is divorced from ultimate reality. Therefore, we need these regular ‘refreshers’ concerning God’s relationship to the creation so that we behold the majesty of God as Lord of the cosmos. The ‘cosmological Psalms’ are rich with language describing God’s complete control over the manifold works of His hands.
We live immersed in a radically man-centered philosophical climate that may ‘allow’ Christ to govern the private expression of religion, but does not recognize His Lordship over of the cosmos, history, and providence.
Our humanist, postmodern world worships the creation itself as self-originating, self-sustaining (self-existent), and self-defining. Thus, the unbeliever credits the universe as the source of his origin. He bows to the cosmos as his ‘creator’. But the natural man immersed in general revelation, will not be a able on judgment day to plead ignorance or sincerity. In keeping with this truth of God’s inescapable witness in creation and conscience, a seminary classmate wrote a paper titled, “What we cannot, not know.” The thesis of his paper was drawn from Romans chapter one, namely that God’s revelation of Himself in creation and conscience is so undeniable clear and indelible, that the natural man must continually studiously suppress the knowledge of God to escape facing God’s witness to man. As a parallel theme, another seminary paper was titled, “Why we cannot, not worship.” In other words, since our creational identity is that of a worshipper, we are always ready and eager to express ourselves as enthusiastic vocal spectators of what we regard as excellent. We know that only the saving work of regeneration by the Spirit can restore our ability to worship the eternal excellence of God in Christ.
If you are not proactively daily warming your heart at the hearth of God’s majesty, holiness, love, grace, and righteousness, then you will most certainly take your chilly heart to the hearth of this world for warmth. For ‘you cannot, not worship’.
Our Lord so often explains that all-consuming paradigm of spiritual inverse proportion. In other words, to the degree you fear God, you will not fear man. If you are building on the rock of Christ’s word, then you won’t be building on sand. If you are loving God, then you won’t love this world. If you are laying up treasure in heaven, then you won’t weary yourself seeking treasure here. If you are gathering souls with Christ, then you won’t be scattering souls from Him. If you are seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, then you won’t be obsessed with, or apprehensive about, earthly security. If you are loving your enemies, then you won’t be hating them and seeking your own vengeance. If you are seeking glory from God, then you won’t be dependent upon the glory and approval of man. The list just goes on and on regarding the nature of true spirituality expressed in inverse proportions. In a simplified manner, the book of Psalms frequently addresses these inverse proportions as positive versus negative orientations to the righteousness of God and His statutes.
Study the book of Revelation and you will realize that during the tribulation period, angels armed with bowls of plagues will be sent out as God’s ‘sheriffs’ to enforce His eviction notice.
For, the incredibly modest ‘rent’ of thanksgiving and praise to God Almighty Creator has not been paid, month after month, and year after year by a world full of scoffers. Every person and angel who resents living for God’s glory is an enemy of God and His glory. The Psalms describes the unbeliever as ordering his life as if the attributes of God do not exist. If a person is not a true worshipper of God, as J. C. Ryle has said, then there will be absolutely nothing for them to do in heaven.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a system known as the hierarchy of needs.
Moving up his pyramid of needs from the bottom: first there are physical needs, then safety, then love and belonging, then esteem, then self-actualization (i.e. pursuit of the authentic self). One hundred years plus years of this kind of man-centered psychology have deeply affected the West. So much so, it has completely reshaped our doctrine of man or anthropology. For, according to Scripture, the real you is known by what one worships and serves. But, according to secular psychology the real you is found in the particular set of yearnings belonging to the self. This apostate anthropology justifies self-worship as normal, healthy, and desirable. Is it any wonder then that within this system sin is justified as: folks merely attempting to get their needs and yearnings met? Consider the radical nature of the gospel in the face of psychology’s assumptions. For, the gospel slays self-love on the cross, crucifying it in the sufferings of our blessed Substitute, and calling for its ‘death sentence’ to be applied and carried out daily in the believer’s cross-bearing and self-denial.
Psychology did not ‘make’ the natural man as self-centered as he is, but it did excuse it. In its present humanist form, the West’s anthropology has normalized a self-oriented, self-determined life.
The unquestioned personal philosophy of our day is: be true to yourself, even when being ‘true’ involves sexual perversion. Self as the focal point of life is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in ‘living color’. For in our present age, it is considered wise, sophisticated, and even scientific to owe unquestioned loyalty to self. It is not difficult to see how this sentiment opposes bending the knee to God Almighty. For, the holy God of the Bible threatens the grace-spurning impenitent with eternal damnation—and such an absolute claim upon sinners by the Creator is considered the very epitome of a conflict of interest—a radical departure from what is good for the self. Conversely, the psalmist speaks frequently about his devotion to the Lord as a whole life orientation—shaping thought, word, deed, hope, and security.
According to Scripture, self-love ultimately leads to death. But, the postmodern unbeliever, armed with his Maslowian perspective, reasons as follows, why on earth should I accept a set of truth claims which assert that in my present state as a person, I deserve eternal misery in fire and brimstone? Why, I can hardly think of a more graphic conflict of interest than that! And, even more, supposedly my only way out of this deplorable destiny is to bow before this offended deity.
This self-oriented reasoning described above touches a closely related soul-damning error propagated by humanist psychology. Namely that all offense, trauma of soul, and all perceived interruption of personal well-being is to be assiduously avoided.
Commensurate with the rise of the modern self,ⁱⁱⁱ new laws are being legislated by Western nations, laws which make offending another person a crime. This touches a central nerve in one of psychology’s biggest lies, namely that suffering (including emotional suffering, or suffering an offense) is infinitely worse than sin, no matter how one defines sin. The crux of the issue is this: is the focal point of bedrock reality self, or God? The devil’s original deception produced a race of self-loving, self-referential humans who have subscribed to the evil one’s own self-centered mindset. Only the cross of Christ applied enables former rebels to revolt against the original revolt in Eden. It is a matchless miracle, when through Christ a self-focused creature becomes a God-focused creature, when a self-pleasing being becomes a God-pleasing being.
Today the church seems enthralled with methods, marketing, techniques, and bigger-than-life personalities. Biblical principles are preached with a note of self-improvement attached.
The proclaiming of true repentance has been replaced with self-help homilies. The human potential movement is the wolf at the door eager to ravage the flock; and, that rapacious movement doesn’t mind if its humanistic deception of self-potential is disguised with Christian terminology. In fact, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a self-oriented grid which fits all too nicely with today’s religious life! In this climate, humans have an obese sense of importance. God shrinks to a ‘god-concept,’ employed to fulfill a role of therapeutic helpfulness. The Psalms have the ability to blast us out of our preoccupation with self as architect of our personal world.
Helpfulness has eclipsed holiness. The therapeutic has eaten up theology. Religious managers have displaced divine majesty. Where is the awe, trauma, wonder, and majesty produced by the knowledge of the Almighty?
Where is the smallness and insignificance of man? We are the ones who have changed, God has not changed. We cannot adequately answer these questions above that address the disappearance of theism if we do not know why embracing self at the center of life is a satanic worldview. And as a note to true believers: if you are not proactive in daily warming your heart at the hearth of God’s majesty, wonder, grace, holiness, and love, then you will take your chilly heart to the hearth of this world for warmth. The Psalms are a God-ordained remedy to heal the disease of a man-centered perspective.
Biblical worldview—not merely a Christian intellectual pursuit—is a God-centered, soul-rejoicing unification of Christian truth under God.
A constant refresher in biblical worldview is so needed because we live in an age in which culture denies God’s work in creation and providence, which is tantamount to a denial that the God of Scripture is ultimate reality. As Thomas Charnock chided 450 years ago, to live as if God’s attributes are not involved in life at every point, is practical atheism. There is no such thing as a reality greater than God—or a reality in which God is but a component. But our culture has embraced a naturalistic worldview. For the secularists have said in effect: materialism/naturalism is the only reliable way to explain the universe. The secularists have promoted a worldview which says that the universe is closed. That means they regard the universe to be self-originating, self-contained, self-sustaining, and self-interpreting. Consequently, they attempt to explain all things without the hypothesis of God. Wrong! The transcendent God of the universe is its: Creator, Upholder, Ruler, Definer, and Interpreter.
The culture war between Christianity and secularism represents a ‘collision’ between mutually exclusive cosmologies.
A collision of ‘train wreck’ proportions is taking place when these two worldviews, or cosmologies collide. This has everything to do with how you think, live, view education, choose your friends, converse, invest your life, and raise your kids. We must understand how secularism has helped produce a post-Christian idolatrous culture. Like an immense wrecking ball, naturalism has systematically broken down the boundaries set by God. Students imbued with Darwinism find themselves ‘metaphysically lost’ in a materialistic/chance universe without a fixed point of reference—how does one find meaning and rationality in a meaningless and irrational universe?
With the rise of modern science came a fascination with quantities—with measuring things. Accompanying philosophies suggested that all reality may be reduced to a kind of mathematical formula. Concreteness, empiricism, and precision became the most valued attributes of knowledge. In other words, people began to think that the scientific method (and an appeal to material causes) was the only valid way to understand the world around us because “real knowledge” was scientific. “Real knowledge” was empirically verifiable, measurable, and quantifiable.ⁱᵛ Notes Christian sociologist, Ken Myers, church leaders, in an effort to remain relevant, and worried about losing their market share, began to reframe traditional Christian teaching in terms that fit the times. The church pushed its message through the grid of science; casting truths as ‘scientific principles’. In essence, “[t]he belief became common that only science could make the world intelligible. . .”ᵛ
What was the net effect of replacing divine revelation with philosophic naturalism? In the minds of most, God as personal, transcendent, involved with creation was eclipsed and demoted.
ᵛⁱ God’s direct involvement in the lives of His creatures was increasingly ruled out. God was no longer linked to all the details of reality and personal life. God had been marginalized—retired to a private or sub-cultural role. God had been eradicated as a shared basis of thought and experience.
When one allows the Bible to describe salvation and science to comprehensively describe the creation, it produces a tear in our thinking. “Believing students on university campuses are able offer Jesus as ‘friend’ but have no clue how to proclaim Him as Lord of the cosmos.”ᵛⁱⁱ This prevalent dualism welcomes Jesus as ‘mascot’—as ‘co-pilot’ for your spiritual journey, but cannot conceive of Him, or proclaim Him, as majestic Lord of the universe. This is the dilemma our Christian students face today on the secular university campus. The loss of biblical cosmology, namely God’s relation to, and purpose for the universe, forces these students to live with an immense ‘disconnect’ between faith and life. In other words, the foundation of the empirical, the rational, and the historical have been severed from Christian experience. We must note how God’s revelation in Christ answers this divide.
The electronic media is dead set on having us forget our Christian worldview. Nearly every television program and movie operate with an agenda of displacing Christian worldview.ᵛⁱⁱⁱ Our young people attend a movie and watch with little discernment—assuming that what they are viewing and emotionally experiencing is “life as it is.” The net effect is a palpable separation of our everyday life from our spiritual life.ⁱˣ Spiritual truths are regarded as only abstract expressions of our inner life—divorced from the objective reality of everyday life. The Psalms are a powerful curative, for the psalmist bares his heart issues before the Lord, seeking a full interface with the One who knows him perfectly, and who alone can assist him in processing negativity, and in restoring his wholeness.
The removal of Biblical worldview from our worship and witness has crept into Evangelicalism.
Consequently, redemption tends to be viewed as a private, subjective, personal, preference without an objective basis. Salvation exists in the mind and the heart—as if concrete reality is the physical universe and salvation belongs to the private and the subjective. In other words, salvation is treated as less real than the physical elements of the universe. Evangelicalism’s accommodation to the modern, or dualistic view, has pushed redemption further into the ‘upper story’ subjective category. Christians are living in a state of détente with the open ‘gash’ of dualism. Consequently, most professing Christians have lost the cosmological foundation for redemption. The Psalms are a perfect tonic for this ailment. For numerous Psalms are cosmological in nature. They exalt the Lord for His direct involvement in providence, in the care of creation, and in using His creation alternately for blessing and for judgment.
Christian students often live with an immense ‘disconnect’ between their professed beliefs and their life experiences. “At one Christian high school, a theology teacher . . . drew a heart on one side of the blackboard and a brain on the other. The two are as divided as the two sides of the blackboard, he told the class: the heart is what we use for religion, while the brain is what we use for science.”ˣ This dualistic tear or divide leaves knowledge utterly fragmented, spirituality is partitioned off from the remainder of life. The secular/sacred dichotomy tends to restrict Christianity to the realm of religious truth—this creates double minds and fragmented lives.ˣⁱ The Psalms bring a wonderful unity to this blight of fragmentation.
The book of Psalms is a very powerful corrective to dualistic thinking. They overturn the two-level view of truth.
There is no dualism between creation and redemption in the Psalms. Christians for the most part have allowed themselves to be intimidated by the agenda of the secularists—as if Christian truth is an inward matter severed from objective fact. We will not be able to prepare the next generation to define the faith, and defend the faith if they have no response to the secularist argument that the creation is nothing more than matter and motion, and natural laws and processes. The book of Psalms overturns the irrationalism of the secularists. Let’s turn to the book of Psalms and discover the abundance of worldview “building blocks” therein.
End Notes:
i from an Amazon book review of, Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue
ii John Piper, Finally Alive, pg. 77
iii See the book by this title, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, by Carl Trueman
iv Ken Myers, The Problem of Contextualization in a Decadent Culture
v James C. Turner, Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins
University Press, 1985) in Ken Myers, “The Problem of Contextualization in a Decadent Culture.”
vi Myers.
vii Peter Jones, “Framing the Issues; Finding our Voices” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet,
think-tank, 2007).
viii Peter Jones, “Who Stole our Sacred Canopy?” Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, (www.cwipp.org, newscwipp
42).
ix Myers.
x Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004) 19.
xi Ibid, p. 25.